Apple podcasts: tinyurl.com/ytzkvm9t
Spotify: tinyurl.com/2juynzxe
You have to listen to this.
Let me repeat that, you HAVE to listen to this!
This is my number one audio recommendation of the year. Of all the music, all the podcasts I've told you about, this is where you should dedicate your time, this is where you should trust me, this speaks to the essence of what is going on in the Middle East.
Jihad.
I can't tell you how many years people have told me to listen to the Sam Harris podcast. I actually tried once, but the slow delivery didn't resonate. You see I'm overloaded, and so are you. In the pre-internet era we could get bored, there was an absence of opportunities, we didn't have access to the entire history of recorded music at our fingertips, we did not even have cable, never mind streaming outlets like Netflix. You could go to the library, you could buy a record and listen to it, but we were starved for input.
Not anymore. But how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
Much of my inbox is a laugh, written by zealots, in defense of Phish or the Dead or hatred of Spotify, you have to dismiss it out of hand. These people are so inured to their vision that they cannot fathom anybody disagreeing with them. They're fanatics.
But not like jihadists.
God is great, but so is death. Death, being a martyr, is a route to paradise, the afterlife. Most westerners cannot understand this. Which is why this Harris podcast is so illuminating. But nothing I write here, no synopsis, will do justice to Harris's work. He lays it out slowly, deliberately, looking at all sides. Unlike too many testifying he has no agenda, he's just trying to tell us what is going on. And in the process he undercuts a lot of the b.s. that is consuming us on college campuses, on social media, arguments made by people who have no idea what is going on.
And unless you're a jihadist yourself, you'll be intrigued, you'll get it. You can't listen to Harris and say he's biased, that he's taking a side, he's just telling how it is, in a completely comprehendible way, and most people have no idea how it is. It's much greater than Israel/Palestine. It's about fanatical jihadists.
This is how virality works. I started to get e-mail about this particular episode of Sam's podcast. That was not enough for me to listen. But having finished the latest episode of Jackson Hogen's "RealSkiers" podcast on my way up the mountain, I needed something to listen to on the way down. I used to listen to "Pivot," but as much as I'm a fan of Scott Galloway, I find Kara Swisher intolerable. I know this bans me from future opportunities, but if one can't be honest, why even bother. Kara... When you keep boasting about who you know, it's evidence of insecurity. Instead of making you look good, it makes you look bad. Furthermore, you don't have to be an expert on everything, no one can be. And you need to stop telling us you were just on the phone with someone Scott references. Furthermore, your myopia means you're often wrong. Scott isn't, but you're undercutting your credibility by constantly defending the visions of your friends in the tech industry, and in addition you know nothing about the law. And for the past week and a half, I see the "Pivot" podcast in my feed, and I just can't bring myself to press play, because I know when it's done I'll be pissed off.
So I started scrolling through the offerings, and I saw that Bari Weiss was rebroadcasting the same Sam Harris episode people were e-mailing me about. And it clicked, I decided to check it out. I'm up and down on Bari, she's very intelligent, but sometimes thin-skinned, and sometimes self-righteous, and many times too right-leaning for me. But some of her episodes are worth listening to, and unlike Kara she's not plainly obnoxious.
Now not a single major media outlet influenced me. I didn't see the Harris episode in any listing. It's just that it rose up in my world, I saw it in multiple places, it was given the imprimatur of Bari Weiss, and I dove in.
And I need to tell you about it, everybody.
Harris is wiser than all those ceasefire bozos in the "New York Times." Not that Harris believes the Israelis should be attacking Gaza in this way at all. It's just that Harris can see the forest for the trees, he's not caught up in the moment, he's got perspective. It's the opposite of a horse race, like the endless coverage of the presidential election a year out. Harris is not interested in gotcha headlines, you're either into what he has to say or not. And not everybody is going to be into Harris. But his audience will grow if people keep telling others like I am now.
I don't know almost anything about Sam Harris. Who knows, I could do some investigation and find out I don't agree with him on most points.
But this one episode...
Wow.
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